When the memory retrieval process breaks down, people wonder exactly why and how such a thing occurs. In many cases, failed retrieval is accompanied by a tip-of-the-tongue state, a feeling that an unretrieved item is stored in memory. Tip-of-the-tongue states stand at the crossroads of several research traditions within cognitive science. Some research focuses on the nature of the retrieval failure. Other research tries to determine what tip-of-the-tongue states can tell us about the organization of lexical memory that is, what aspects of a word we can recall when we are otherwise unable to...
When the memory retrieval process breaks down, people wonder exactly why and how such a thing occurs. In many cases, failed retrieval is accompanied b...